If you know Jet, you’d know that he has a skin condition called Ezcema – I think he’s quite severe (having not known any child worse than him).

And so we have taken this holiday opportunity in Surabaya to consult different people and try different approaches.

First we went to a Shinshe (Chinese medicine man?) whom apparently also a doctor. He attributed Jet’s condition to his weak maag (can’t remember the English word). He advised against any kind of milk especially formula milk.

We then went to a skin doctor. She gave us skin lotion that needs to be applied 3 times daily and a medicine called Celastamine (from what I read, it seems to be an anti histamine).  She also advised against eating chicken, egg, fish.

Lina also wants me to try the traditional Javanese plant called Putrowali (which she called wrongly as Brotowali). Traditionally the plant will be boiled and the water will be drank, since Jet is still a child, we didn’t give the water for him to drink but we are using the water for his bath.

To summarize here are the things that we are trying:

• Minimize the use of air-con especially when he’s sleeping – thankfully it has been cloudy for most part of the week so it is actually not very hot at all
• Jet has not been drinking any kind of milk for few days now
• He takes a bath twice a day (doctor suggested 3 times – but I just couldn’t fit in the time). We don’t use any soap/shampoo for the bath – only water. At the end of the bath, I use a little towel dipped on Putrowali’s water and wipe it on Jet’s body for few mins. After bath, we apply doctor’s lotion. As usual sorbolene on the parts of the body that don’t get the lotion applied.
• We try to limit Jet’s consumption of chicken, egg and fish – it’s impossible to avoid them completely.

At the moment, the intensity of the Ezcema seems to be decreasing (less redness) compared to the first few days here. However it seems to be spreading little bit to other area of the body, noticeably on his face (although I am not 100% sure whether it’s Eczema or not).

It’s time consuming to look after him, and I do pray that his skin condition will get better over the time. At the same time looking after him, somehow makes me love him even more.